It’s December 31, 2019 … the last day of this decade, my last blog post of this decade. Do you remember what you were doing on December 31, 1999? Do you remember the Y2K bug? Did you heed all the warnings?
In hindsight, we know that not only did all the computers continue to work, but they, and technology in general, have thrived. So many things that we take for granted today were not around (to the general public) twenty years ago. Continue reading
Let me present some reasons why …
People start their own business for a variety of reasons. They want to follow their dreams. They want to work in a field they are passionate about. They want to make a difference in the world. For many (me included), they want to be in charge of their own schedule … not be told what/when/where or how to do their work. They want to be charge of their own time, and since they will be the “Boss”, they would hopefully have more “free time”. Free time … what is that?
As a busy entrepreneur, you wear numerous “hats” on any given day. You are the head of the Marketing Department, the Accounting Department, HR, Sales … you get the drift, you are the one in charge of everything. Every business decision lands on your shoulders.
What they didn’t realize is how time consuming the “running” of the business would be. They want to spend their time doing the work they love. Sadly, many get bogged down by having to handle the administrative side of running a business.
That is where having a virtual assistant comes into play. Having a VA handle certain tasks frees up your time to concentrate on doing the things your love about running your business. Tasks that you are the best person to handle … things that grow your business and make money. One of the best business decisions you can make is to delegate / outsource certain tasks to a virtual assistant.
Well-informed small business owners know the importance of having an online presence in today’s high-tech, 24/7 world. Social Media Marketing is necessary for all types of business, large and small. The difference is the large corporations have a Marketing Department. The small business – not so much. Unfortunately for the small business owner, social media management is one of those (very) time consuming tasks. On the up side, social media management is a task that many small business owners delegate to their VA. Your VA will work with you to put together a workable strategy and schedule for posting on your various social media platforms. You will decide what content will be posted to each platform, as well as, the timing and the frequency. After you and your virtual assistant have come up with the best social media strategy for your business, you can then hand that task off to your VA, knowing your SMM is in good and capable hands.
Delegating the task of social media management (or a multitude of other tasks) to a trusted VA will free up some time that you can then use to tackle the other tasks on your to-do list ?
Owning your own small business is very rewarding … and, at the same time, quite exhausting! There is never enough time in the day. It is very time consuming to create relevant content for your audience and/or find inspiring quotes and tips to share. Hiring a virtual assistant to handle posting to your social media platforms is the answer to having enough time to manage all the other aspects of running your business.
Of course, you may be thinking that the VA may post something you wouldn’t like and/or you wouldn’t have posted. You may be thinking the VA wouldn’t convey your company’s “voice”. As a virtual assistant, I spend time learning my client’s personality and company “voice” via scheduled phone or Skype calls. My clients provide me with content ideas and relevant articles to use as reference for creating industry related posts.
You may be thinking it will be expensive to delegate your social media tasks. It is money well spent when you consider the time you will be saving (time that can now be devoted to growing and building your business) by taking this task off your plate every day (and you should be posting consistently/daily). It will give you peace of mind knowing that your social media posting is being taken care of by a trained professional. Tracy Helps You offers Social Media Packages that provide a certain number of posts per month, as well as, managing engagement (likes, shares, comments & messages) with your followers on your behalf. Think of it as you would any other necessary expense for running your business.
You may be wary of completely outsourcing your social media postings. The good news is that we can work together in creating and implementing your social media strategy. Tracy Helps You can create and schedule the bulk of the posts and you can add some personal content type posts. You can also respond to comments and messages. Another great idea is to post Live Streaming video. This gives your online presence a face and a voice for your followers to connect with. Interacting and building relationships is the main reason to use social media as a business tool … it’s social 🙂
Email is a wonderful thing. It’s so simple to use for fast and easy communication. It’s convenient. It’s inexpensive. Nearly everyone uses it.
Email is a great tool, and like other types of tools, it needs regular maintenance. Without regular maintenance, it can quickly become out-of-control and over whelming.
As your Virtual Assistant, I will help you clean up your email inbox. I will help you organize and maintain your emails:
Tracy Helps You can save you valuable time by organizing your email inbox for you. It is one of the many types of tasks that can be delegated to your virtual assistant, so your time can be spent on the matters that demand your expertise and/or personal attention. Call soon to schedule your initial appointment, then we can start to help you (in this area, as well as, in others) 🙂
It’s that time of year again, reflecting and looking back on the last year while making plans and goal for the next. While reviewing the site stats for my website, these were the top 10 blog posts of 2016.
#1 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/lending-a-helping-hand/
#2 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/locks-of-love-donation/
#3 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/labor-day-weekend-summers-last-hurrah/
#4 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/list-helps-stay-organized/
#5 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/leap-year-thoughts/
#6 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/back-to-school-homeschool-planning/
#7 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/back-school-college-bound/
#8 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/autumn-fall-decorating-halloween-thanksgiving/
#9 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/show-everyone-real-love-valentines-day/
#10 http://www.tracyhelpsyou.com/spring-break-getaway-staycation-clean-week/
Is there a specific topic you’d like to read about? I’d love to hear your suggestions or thoughts 🙂
Tomorrow, we flip over another page on the calendar … to the last month of 2016. December is a month full of fun, holiday celebrations, but regular life still goes on. All the normal day-to-day responsibilities don’t necessarily take a break during this “most wonderful time of the year”, which means your schedule is even busier than usual.
In today’s world, most of the mail we receive is computer generated – sometimes its addressed to us by name (computers are smart 🙂 ), but many times it is addressed to “Current Resident”. Companies spend a lot of $$ to send you these advertisements, but most people consider it “junk mail” and toss it.
Most everyone loves receiving Holiday cards. I’m talking about physical, snail-mail cards. It’s fun to check your mailbox each day, hoping to find something for you personally. I think of them as “fun” mail … something I want to open right away. I enjoy reading the Holiday Letter that many people include with their card. It’s a good way to catch up with the happenings in their family, especially for those who are not on Facebook 🙂 I also love getting packages in the mail, many of which are gifts I have ordered online … who doesn’t love seeing the UPS, FedEx, USPS or Amazon truck pull up in front of their house (please tell me you do too, that it’s not just me)?
All that to say, sending Holiday cards are is time honored tradition of the season, but also a time-consuming task to do in an already busy time of year. Tracy Helps You can take this task off your to-do list for you. Whether it’s your personal family cards, or cards sent out to your business clients and colleagues, we can take care of it for you – freeing up some time for you to handle all the other things on your to-do list.
This hectic season is the perfect time to delegate some tasks to your personal / virtual assistant. Time is a valuable commodity! Let Tracy Helps You save you some valuable time 🙂 Call today!!
An assistant can seem like a lifesaver because they can save you valuable time. Everyone is busy, their calendars and schedules are full of appointments, events and occasions.
We all get 24 hours in a day. It’s a challenge deciding which activities take priority over the others. You may sometimes wonder “how in the world will I get everything accomplished”? Continue reading
As a personal assistant, I offer many different types of services. In the last 6 months or so, I’ve had quite a few requests for administrative / office kind of help.
Around Thanksgiving time, I sent out Christmas cards for 2 individual clients and 3 business owners. Each client had their own instructions, but basically, I copied and folded family letters to be included, printed labels, addressed envelopes and applied stamps – but mostly, I saved my client valuable time. I also helped one of those same business owners plan their company Christmas party. That was fun for me, and was another item checked off his to-do list 🙂
Another client had me fill in for his Office Assistant while she was out sick for a few days. He said it was more cost efficient hiring me than using a temp agency.
Yesterday, I did a mass mailing for that same client. I did the mundane, but necessary work of printing the letters, folding them, labeling the envelopes, stuffing them and running them through the postage machine. It took 3 hours, but his Office Assistant wasn’t taken away from her normal duties for this occasional type project.
I have an ongoing client that I send out hand written thank you cards to all the leads he meets / talks to. He sends me an email with their info and I mail them a card. After our initial meeting, this is all handled virtually. He has the stationary and stamps delivered directly to me. I invoice him monthly and he sends my payment. Easy Peasy ! I also created and maintain a database / spreadsheet with all these leads for him.
Another client has also hired me “virtually”, to manage her Facebook business page. She gives me images and facts pertaining to her business and I use them to create Facebook posts for her business page. I also create her weekly events.